The title of this work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Cows?, sprang from a dream I had in the summer of 2016, in which I dreamt of a neon cyan sign that read above.

Through a 3 minunte googling, surprisingly I found out it is very similar to the book-title of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968), which is also the basis of the film Blade Runner (1982). The VR content in this work is based on the details in the book that the film was not visually elaborated. I read Dick’s novel in Chinese, when I was little. The book’s title was translated following the film, Blade Runner. In this way, I didn’t know the novel’s original title until then.

This work explores the delicate umbilical cord connecting art and technology, and the ontology of Virtual Reality. It contains two parts, the labyrinth constructed from one-sided mirror and the digitally made VR spaces. The audience walks inside the labyrinth wearing VR headsets, which prevents them from seeing what’s in front of them in the labyrinth. The VR world does not overlap with the physical labyrinth. The physical labyrinth imposes restrictions on the audience moving freely in the VR world. It sheds light on the gap between the virtual space and the real space. The visitors who wears VR glasses and fumbles their ways in the maze, together with the maze itself, constitute a spectacle. The metaphor of class and power structure hidden in the VR technology is revealed through watching and being watched.